Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia is a novel for children by C. S. Lewis, written in late 1949 and first published in 1951. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, although in the overall chronological sequence it comes fourth.

Contents

Plot summary

While standing on a British railway station, awaiting their train to school after the summer holidays, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are magically whisked away to a beach near an old and ruined castle. They come to realize the ruin is Cair Paravel, where they once ruled as the Kings and Queens of Narnia, and discover the treasure vault where Peter's sword and shield, Susan’s bow and arrows, and Lucy’s bottle of magical cordial and dagger are stored. Susan's horn for summoning help is missing, however, as she left it in the woods the day they returned to England after their first visit to Narnia. Although only a year has passed in England, many centuries[1] have passed in Narnia.

That same day, they intervene to rescue Trumpkin the dwarf from soldiers who have brought him to the ruins to drown him. Trumpkin tells the children that since their disappearance, a race of men called Telmarines have invaded Narnia, driving the Talking Beasts into the wilderness and pushing even their memory underground. Narnia is now ruled by King Miraz and his wife Queen Prunaprismia, but the rightful king is Miraz's young nephew, Prince Caspian, who has gained the support of the Old Narnians.

Miraz had usurped the throne by killing his own brother, Caspian's father King Caspian IX. Miraz tolerated Caspian as heir until his own son was born. Prince Caspian, until that point ignorant of his uncle's evil deeds, escaped with the aid of his tutor Doctor Cornelius, who had schooled him in the lore of Old Narnia, and who gives him in parting Queen Susan's horn. Caspian flees into the forest but is knocked unconscious when his horse bolts. He awakes in the den of a talking badger, Trufflehunter, and two dwarfs, Nikabrik and Trumpkin, who accept Caspian as their king.

The badger and dwarves take Caspian to meet many creatures of Old Narnia. They gather for a council at midnight on Dancing Lawn. Doctor Cornelius arrives to warn them of the approach of King Miraz and his army; he urges them to flee to Aslan’s How in the great woods near Cair Paravel. But the Telmarines follow the Narnians to the How, and after several skirmishes the Narnians appear close to defeat. At a second war council, they discuss whether to use Queen Susan's horn, and whether it will bring Aslan or the Kings and Queens of the golden age. Not knowing where help will arrive, they dispatch Pattertwig the Squirrel to Lantern Waste and Trumpkin to Cair Paravel, and it is then that Trumpkin is captured by the Telmarines and rescued by the Pevensies.

Trumpkin and the Pevensies make their way to Caspian. They try to save time by traveling up Glasswater Creek, but lose their way. Lucy sees Aslan and wants to follow where he leads, but the others do not believe her and follow their original course, which becomes increasingly difficult. In the night, Aslan calls Lucy and tells her that she must awaken the others and insist that they follow her on Aslan's path. In the cold early hours of morning the others eventually obey. They begin to see Aslan's shadow, then Aslan himself. Aslan sends Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin ahead to Aslan's How to deal with the treachery brewing there, and follows with Susan and Lucy, who see the wood come alive.

Peter, Edmund, and Trumpkin enter Aslan’s How; they overhear Nikabrik and his confederates, a Hag and a Wer-Wolf, trying to convince Caspian, Cornelius, and Trufflehunter to help them resurrect the White Witch in hopes of using her power to defeat Miraz. A fight ensues, and Nikabrik and his two friends are slain.

Peter challenges Miraz to single combat; the army of the victor in this duel will be considered the victor in the war. Even though he has a stronger army and thus has more to lose by a duel, Miraz accepts the challenge, goaded by his two lords, Glozelle and Sopespian. After a stiff fight, Miraz falls. Glozelle and Sopespian cry that the Narnians have cheated and stabbed the King in the back while he was down. They command the Telmarine army to attack, and in the commotion that follows, Glozelle stabs Miraz in the back. The living Wood wakened by Aslan arrives, and the Telmarines flee. Discovering themselves trapped at the Great River, where their bridge has been destroyed by forces of Narnia, the Telmarines surrender.

Aslan gives the Telmarines a choice of staying in Narnia under Caspian or returning to Earth, their original home. After one volunteer disappears through the magic door created by Aslan, the Pevensies go through to reassure the other Telmarines, though Peter and Susan reveal to Edmund and Lucy that they are too old to return furthermore to Narnia. The Pevensies find themselves back at the railway station where the adventure began, just as the train to Susan and Lucy's boarding school pulls up into the station.

Chapters

The Island

The Ancient Treasure House

The Dwarf

The Dwarf Tells of Prince Caspian

Caspian's Adventure in the Mountains

The People That Lived in Hiding

Old Narnia in Danger

How They Left the Island

What Lucy Saw

The Return of the Lion

The Lion Roars

Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance

The High King in Command

How All Were Very Busy

Aslan Makes a Door in the Air

Characters

Peter Pevensie, the oldest of the Pevensie siblings, is High-King of Narnia.

Edmund Pevensie is the third Pevensie child. Unlike his older siblings, he trusts Lucy's sighting of Aslan, pointing out that in their first adventure she turned out to be right and he ended up looking a bit silly.

Lucy Pevensie, the youngest Pevensie child, is the first to see Aslan again.

Miraz, Caspian's uncle, usurped the throne of the Telmarines. So long as Miraz has no son, he tolerates Caspian as heir, but when a son is born he moves to eliminate Caspian. He fights the Old Narnians, who support Caspian, and accepts a challenge to single combat with Peter to settle the matter; but he is killed treacherously by Lord Glozelle after the duel.

Doctor Cornelius, half-dwarf and half-human, is tutor to Caspian and aids in the Narnians' defeat of the Telmarines.

Trumpkin, a Red Dwarf who helps Caspian defeat Miraz. When he is captured by Miraz's soldiers and taken to Cair Paravel to be drowned, he is freed by the Pevensie children and leads them to Caspian. At the beginning of the novel he is entirely sceptical about the existence of Aslan and the ancient Kings and queens, but learns better in the course of the story.

Nikabrik, a Black Dwarf in Caspian's army, resists fighting alongside Caspian. Together with a Hag and a Wer-Wolf, he plots to raise the White Witch against the Telmarines through black magic, but all three are killed by Caspian and his allies.

Trufflehunter, a talking badger, holds faith with Aslan and Old Narnia, and aids Prince Caspian in his struggle against Miraz.

Reepicheep, a talking mouse (descended from the non-talking mice who freed Aslan from his bonds in the previous book, and were thus given the gift of speech), is a fearless swordsman and a staunch supporter of Aslan and Caspian.

Lord Sopespian and Lord Glozelle, lords of Telmar. After being insulted by Miraz they manipulate him into accepting Peter's challenge, cry treachery when Miraz falls and secretly stab him in the back.

Themes

The two major themes of the story are courage and chivalry and, as Lewis himself said in a letter to an American girl, "the restoration of the true religion after a corruption".[2]

The
Chronicles

About

Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to
feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... An obligation
to feel can freeze feelings...

Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I
could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on
the fairy tale as an instrument, then collected information about
child psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then
drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out
'allegories' to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't
write in that way. It all began with images; a faun carrying an
umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there
wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in
of its own accord.

Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966)

I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal
past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own
religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one
was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of
Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought
to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And
reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with
lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But
supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world,
stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school
associations, one could make them for the first time appear in
their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those
watchful dragons? I thought one could.

For the 2005 movie, see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe

Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still
which she did not know...

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan,
Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to
them when they were sent away from London during the war because of
the air-raids.

Opening lines

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

"By the Lion's Mane, a strange device," said King Peter, "to set a
lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high
above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!

"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were
somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic,
there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge
goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have
looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness
before Time dawned, she would have read there a different
incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who
had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the
Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

Ch. 15 : Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time

How Aslan provided food for them all I don't know; but somehow
or other they found themselves all sitting down on the grass to a
fine high tea at about eight o'clock.

Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

"By the Lion's Mane, a strange device," said King Peter, "to
set a lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so
high above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!"

Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

But always what we have taken in hand, the same we have
achieved.

King Peter, in Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in
Narnia.

Aslan, in Ch. 17 : The Hunting of the White Stag

“He’ll be coming and going” [...] “One day you'll see him and
another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down — and of course
he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll
often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not
like a tame lion."

"If your Majesty is ever to use the Horn," said
Trufflehunter, "I think the time has now come." Caspian
had of course told them of his treasure several days ago.
"We are certainly in great need," answered Caspian. "But it is hard
to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even
worse need and we had already used it?""By that argument," said Nikabrik, "your Majesty will never
use it until it is too late."
"I agree with that," said Doctor Cornelius.
"And what do you think, Trumpkin?" asked Caspian.
"Oh, as for me," said the Red Dwarf, who had been listening with
complete indifference, "your Majesty knows I think the Horn—and
that bit of broken stone over there and your great King Peter—and
your Lion Aslan—are all eggs in moonshine. It's all one to
me when your Majesty blows the Horn. All I insist on is that the
army is told nothing about it. There's no good raising hopes of
magical help which (as I think) are sure to be
disappointed."

Ch. 7 : Old Narnia In Danger

But I thought you didn't believe in the Horn, Trumpkin, said
Caspian.
No more I do, your Majesty. But what does that got to do with it? I
might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here. You are my
King. "I know the difference between giving advice and giving
orders. You have my advice and now it's the time for orders"

Ch. 7 : Old Narnia In Danger

"Yes," said Peter, "I suppose what makes it feel so queer is
that in the stories it's always someone in our world who does the
calling. One doesn't really think about where the Jinn's coming
from."
"And now we know what it feels like for the Jinn," said Edmund with
a chuckle. "Golly! It's a bit uncomfortable to know that
we can be whistled for like that. It's worse than what
Father says about living at the mercy of the telephone."

Ch. 8 : How They Left The Island

"You have listened to fears, Child," said Aslan. "Come, let me
breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"

Aslan to Susan, in Ch. 11 : The Lion Roars

"Sire," said Reepicheep [the chief mouse]. "My life is ever at
your command, but my honour is my own. Sire, I have among my people
the only trumpeter in your Majesty's army. I had thought, perhaps,
we might have been sent with the challenge [to single combat
between the High King Peter and King Miraz]. Sire, my people are
grieved. Perhaps if it were your pleasure that I should be a
marshal of the lists, it would content them."
[...]
"I am afraid it would not do," said Peter very gravely. "Some
humans are afraid of mice—"
"I have observed it, Sire," said Reepicheep.
"And it would not be quite fair to Miraz," Peter continued, "to
have in sight anything that might abate the edge of his
courage."
"Your Majesty is the mirror of honour," said the Mouse with one of
his admirable bows.

"Welcome, Prince," said Aslan. "Do you feel yourself sufficient
to take up the Kingship of Narnia?"
"I — I don't think I do, Sir," said Caspian. "I'm only a
kid."
"Good," said Aslan. "If you had felt yourself sufficient,
it would have been a proof that you were not."

Ch. 15 : Aslan Makes A Door In The Air

"You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan.
"And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest
beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest
emperor on earth; Be content."

Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams — dreams, do you
understand — come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.

There was once a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and
he almost deserved it. He didn't call his Father and
Mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They [his
family] were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were
vegetarians, non-smokers and tee-totallers, and wore a
special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little
furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always
open.

Opening lines

He liked books if they were books of information and had
pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing
exercises in model schools.

About Eustace, Ch. 1 : The Picture in the Bedroom

"But who is Aslan? Do you know him?"
"Well — he knows me," said Edmund.

Eustace and Edmund, in Ch. 7 : How the Adventure
Ended

The Lord Octesian's arm-ring had a curious fate. Eustace did
not want it and offered it to Caspian, and Caspian offered it to
Lucy. She did not care about having it. "Very well, then, catch as
catch can," said Caspian and flung it up in the air. [...] Up went
the ring, flashing in the sunlight, and caught, and hung, as neatly
as a well-thrown quoit, on a little projection on the rock. No
one could climb up to get it from below and no one could climb down
to get it from above. And there, for all I know, it is hanging
still and may hang till the world ends.

Ch. 7 : How the Adventure Ended

In describing the scene Lucy said afterwards, "He was the size
of an elephant," though at another time she only said, "The size of
a cart-horse." But it was not the size that mattered. Nobody dared
to ask what it was. They knew it was Aslan.

Ch. 8 : Two Narrow Escapes

(I don't know what the Bearded Glass was for because I am not a
magician.)

Narrator, in Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

She [Lucy] tried to open it but couldn't at first; this,
however, was only because it was fastened by two leaden clasps, and
when she had undone these it opened easily enough. And what a book
it was!

Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

They were cures for warts (by washing your hands in moonlight
in a silver basin) and toothache and cramp, and a spell for taking
a swarm of bees. The picture of the man with toothache was so
lifelike that it would have set your own teeth aching if you looked
at it too long, and the golden bees which were dotted all round the
fourth spell looked for a moment as if they were really flying. ...
And the longer she read the more wonderful and more real the
pictures became.

Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

"I will say the spell," said Lucy. "I don't care. I
will." She said I don't care because she had a strong
feeling that she mustn't.
But when she looked back at the opening words of the spell, there
in the middle of the writing, where she felt quite sure there had
been no picture before, she found the great face of a lion, of The
Lion, Aslan himself, staring into hers. It was painted such a
bright gold that it seemed to be coming towards her out of the
page; and indeed she never was quite sure afterwards that it hadn't
really moved a little. At any rate, she knew the expression on his
face quite well. He was growling and you could see most of his
teeth. She became horribly afraid and turned over the page at once.

Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

And all in a hurry, for fear her mind would change, she said
the words [for a different spell] (nothing will induce me to tell
you what they were). Then she waited for something to happen.
As nothing happened she began looking at the pictures. And all at
once she saw the very last thing she expected — a picture of a
third-class carriage in a train, with two schoolgirls sitting in
it. ... Only now it was much more than a picture. It was alive. She
could see the telegraph posts flicking past outside the window.

Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

When she had got to the third page [of another story] and come
to the end, she said, "That is the loveliest story I've ever read
or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone
on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it over
again."
But here part of the magic of the Book came into play. You couldn't
turn back. The right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned;
the left-hand pages could not.
... "It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I
know that much. But I can't remember, and what shall I
do?"

Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

"Aslan!" said Lucy almost a little reproachfully. "Don't make
fun of me. As if anything I could do would make
you visible!"
"It did," said Aslan. "Do you think I wouldn't obey my own rules?"

Ch. 10 : The Magician's Book

"Do you grow weary, Coriakin, of ruling such foolish subjects
as I have given you here?" [Aslan asked.]
"No," said the Magician, "they are very stupid but there is no real
harm in them. I begin to grow rather fond of the creatures.
Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day
when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough
magic."
"All in good time, Coriakin," said Aslan.
"Yes, all in very good time, Sir," was the answer.

Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it
lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great
Bridge Builder.

"Please, Aslan," said Lucy, "what do you call
soon?"
"I call all times soon," said Aslan.
[...]
"Come," said the Magician. "All times may be soon to Aslan, but in
my home all hungry times are one o'clock."

Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"Of course I could turn him [the Chief Duffer] into something
else, or even put a spell on him which would make them not believe
a word he said. But I don't like to do that. It's better for them
to admire him than to admire nobody."

Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"A few months ago they [the Duffers] were all for washing up
the plates and knives before dinner: they said it saved time
afterwards. I've caught them planting boiled potatoes to save
cooking them when they were dug up. One day the cat got into the
dairy and twenty of them were at work moving all the milk out; no
one thought of moving the cat."

Ch. 11 : The Dufflepuds Made Happy

"Fools!" said the man, stamping his foot with rage. "That is
the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been
drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is
where dreams — dreams, do you understand — come to life, come real.
Not daydreams: dreams."

Ch. 12 : The Dark Island

"You can say what you like, Reepicheep. There are some things
no man can face."
"It is, then, my good fortune not to be a man," replied Reepicheep
with a very stiff bow.

Caspian and Reepicheep, in Ch. 12 : The Dark Island

"Courage, dear heart"

Whispered to Lucy by Aslan on the Dark Island, in Ch. 12 :
The Dark Island

"My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the
Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my
coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And
when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country,
or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall
sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek shall be head of the
talking mice in Narnia"

Reepicheep, in Ch. 14 : The Beginning of the End of the
World

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy. "Will you tell us how to get
into your country from our world?"
"I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not
tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies
across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge
Builder."

Ch. 16 : The Very End of the World

"Please Aslan, before we go, will you tell us when we can come
back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do, make it
soon."
"Dearest," said Aslan very gently, "you and your brother will never
come back to Narnia."
"Oh, Aslan!!" said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing
voices.
"You are too old, children," said Aslan, "and you must begin to
come close to your own world now."
"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We
shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting
you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are — are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another
name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the
very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here
for a little, you may know me better there."

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I am dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?" said
Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as
Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as
well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her
convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly
frantic.
"Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?" said
Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a
step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and
emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as
if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were
angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must
go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

Ch. 2 : Jill Is Given a Task

"You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to
you," said the Lion.

Ch. 2 : Jill Is Given a Task

"Puddleglum's my name. But it doesn't matter if you forget it.
I can always tell you again."

Ch. 5 : Puddleglum

I hope you won't lose all interest in Jill for the rest of the
book if I tell you that at this moment she began to cry.

Ch. 8 : The House of Harfang

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping,
because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite
right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the
worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any
of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so.
Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees
and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we
have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things
seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this
black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes
me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to
think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right.
But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks
your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the
play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to
lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there
isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these
two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your
court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives
looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I
should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a
place as you say."

Puddleglum, in Ch. 12 : The Queen of Underland

It is the stupidest children who are the most childish
and the stupidest grown-ups who are the most grown-up.

"It's a lion, I know it's a lion," thought Shasta. "I'm done. I
wonder, will it hurt much? I wish it was over. I wonder, does
anything happen to people after they're dead? O-o-oh! Here it
comes! ... Why, it's not nearly as big as I thought! It's only half
the size. No, it isn't even quarter the size. I do declare it's
only the cat!! I must have dreamed all that about its being as big
as a horse."

Ch. 6 : Shasta Among the Tombs

"My good Horse," said the Hermit ... "My good Horse, you've
lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. Don't put back
your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really so humbled
as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense.
You're not quite the great Horse you had come to think,
from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and
cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It
doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as
long as you know you're nobody special, you'll be a very decent
sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with
another."

Ch. 10 : The Hermit of the Southern March

"I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the
cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion
who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who
gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that
you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not
remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death,
so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to
receive you."
"Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"
"It was I."
"But what for?""Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not
hers. I tell no one any story but his own."

Aslan and Shasta, in Ch. 11 : The Unwelcome Fellow
Traveller

And of course he knew none of the true stories about Aslan, the
great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, the King above
all High Kings in Narnia. But after one glance at the Lion's face
he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn't say
anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he
needn't say anything.

Ch. 11 : The Unwelcome Fellow Traveller

"But of course that was the same boat that Aslan (he seems to
be at the back of all the stories) pushed ashore at the right place
for Asheesh to pick me up. I wish I knew that knight's name, fore
he must have kept me alive and starved himself to do it"
"I suppose Aslan would say that was part of someone else's story,"
said Aravis.
"I was forgetting that," said Cor.

Shasta and Aravis, in Ch. 14 : How Bree Became a Wiser
Horse

Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little
neigh, and trotted across to the Lion.
"Please," she said, "you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you
like. I'd sooner be eaten by you then fed by anyone else."
"Dearest daughter," said Aslan, planting a lion's kiss on her
twitching, velvet nose, "I knew you would not be long in coming to
me. Joy shall be yours."

Ch. 14 : How Bree Became a Wiser Horse

"But that's just the point," groaned Bree. "Do Talking Horses
roll? Supposing they don't? I can't bear to give it up. What do you
think, Hwin?"
"I'm going to roll anyway," said Hwin. "I don't suppose any of them
will care two lumps of sugar whether you roll or not."

Ch. 15 : Rabadash the Ridiculous

Aravis also had many quarrels (and, I'm afraid, even fights)
with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later,
when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and
making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it
more conveniently.

In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker
Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham
Road.

Ch. 1 : The Wrong Door

Digory was quite speechless, for Uncle Andrew looked a thousand
times more alarming than he had ever looked before. Polly was not
so frightened yet; but she soon was. For the very first thing Uncle
Andrew did was to walk across to the door of the room, shut it, and
turn the key in the lock. Then he turned round, fixed the children
with his bright eyes, and smiled, showing all his teeth.
"There!" he said. "Now my fool of a sister can't get at you!"
It was dreadfully unlike anything a grown-up would be expected to
do.

Ch. 1 : The Wrong Door

"Rotten?" said Uncle Andrew with a puzzled look. "Oh, I see.
You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true:
most right and proper, I'm sure, and I'm very glad you have been
taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of
that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys -- and
servants -- and women -- and even people in general, can't possibly
be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and
sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are
freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common
pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely
destiny."
As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and
mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying
something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had
seen on his Uncle's face the moment before Polly had vanished: and
all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew's grand words. "All
it means," he thought to himself, "is that he thinks he can do
anything he likes to get anything he wants."

Ch. 2 : Digory and His Uncle

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Poem on the bell in the great hall, Ch. 4 : The Bell and
the Hammer

Aunt Letty was a very tough old lady: aunts often were in those
days.

Ch. 7 : What Happened at the Front Door

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had
begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to
decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to
come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it
was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep
enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words.
There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the
most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he
could hardly bear it.

Ch. 8 : The Fight at the Lamp-post

I give to you for ever this land of Narnia. I give you the woods,
the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars and I give you
myself.

"Creatures, I give you yourselves," said the strong,
happy voice of Aslan. "I give to you forever this land of Narnia. I
give you the woods, the fruits, the rivers. I give you the stars
and I give you myself. The Dumb Beasts whom I have not
chosen are yours also. Treat them gently and cherish them but do
not go back to their ways lest you cease to be Talking Beasts. For
out of them you were taken and into them you can return. Do not
so."

Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb
and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as
justice come in with speech.

Aslan, in Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

What did he say had entered the world? — A Neevil —
What's a Neevil? — No, he didn't say a Neevil, he said a weevil —
Well, what's that?

The talking animals, in Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other
Matters

"No, we're not lettuce, honestly we're not," said Polly
hastily. "We're not at all nice to eat."
"There!" said the Mole. "They can talk. Who ever heard of a talking
lettuce?"

Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than
you really are is that you very often succeed.

Ch. 10 : The First Joke and Other Matters

"No thanks," said Digory, "I don't know that I care much about
living on and on after everyone I know is dead. I'd rather live an
ordinary time and die and go to Heaven."

Ch. 13 : An Unexpected Meeting

He [Digory] was very sad and he wasn't even sure all the time
that he had done the right thing; but whenever he remembered the
shining tears in Aslan's eyes he became sure.

Ch. 13 : An Unexpected Meeting

"But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot
comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice.
[...] But I will give him the only gift he is able to receive.
[...] Sleep and be separated for some few hours from all the
torments you have devised for yourself."

Aslan, in Ch. 14 : The Planting of the Tree

All get what they want; they do not always like it.

Aslan, in Ch. 14 : The Planting of the Tree

When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on
getting worse for some time; but when things once start to go right
they often go on getting better and better.

Ch. 15 : The End of This Story and the Beginning of All
Others

Nothing now remains for us seven but to go back to Stable Hill,
proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that Aslan sends
us

Nothing now remains for us seven but to go back to
Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that Aslan
sends us.

Jewel the Unicorn, upon hearing of the taking of Cair Paravel
by the Calormenes, in Ch. 9 : The Great Meeting on Stable
Hill

He [Aslan] went to the door and they all followed him. He
raised his head and roared, "Now it is time!" then louder, "Time!";
then so loud that is could have shaken the stars, "TIME." The Door
flew open.

Ch. 13 : How the Dwarfs Refused to Be Taken In

"Sir," said Emeth, "I do not know whether you are my friend or
my foe, but I should count it to my honour to have you for either.
Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift
and a noble enemy the next best?"

Ch. 14 : Night Falls on Narnia

[Emeth said,] "And this is the marvel of marvels, that he
[Aslan] called me Beloved, me who am but as a dog — "
"Eh? What's that?" said one of the Dogs.
[...]
"He doesn't mean any harm," said an older Dog. "After all,
we call our puppies Boys when they don't behave
properly."
"So we do," said the first Dog. "Or girls."
"S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog. "That's not a nice word to use.
Remember where you are."

Ch. 15 : Further Up and Further In

Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant
more.

Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this.
You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked
out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away
among the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the
glass there may have been a looking glass. And the sea in the
mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the
same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow
different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in
a story you have never heard but very much want to know.
The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia
was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and
flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can't
describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will
know what I mean.
It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He
stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then
cried:
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong
here. This is the land I have been looking for all my
life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the
old Narnia so much is because it sometimes looked a little like
this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!"

Ch. 15 : Further Up and Further In

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended:
this is the morning." And as He spoke He no longer looked to them
like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so
great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is
the end of all stories, and we can most truly say they all lived
happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the
real story. All their life in this world and all their
adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page:
now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story
which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which
every chapter is better than the one before.